This movie is said to be about an "ordinary woman" who makes an "extraordinary decision" that "changes her life forever", but I don't think that captures it. I would say that this movie does an excellent job depicting an ordinary woman in a bleak imprisoning life, who instinctively breaks free of it for a moment, but then .. what? Is her life changed forever? Does the movie deliver on this promise? (SPOILER ALERT) Not really at all.
But let's start off talking about what the movie does well. I think it is at its best in the pre-prison break portion, which is over half of the movie I believe, in which we see the wrenching despair of this woman (Tara, whose name we don't learn for ages) who is serving an eighteen-year sentence for the crimes of being a woman, in the wrong society, and having married the wrong guy for her, and having kids under the wrong circumstances.
Now, it's true that in many ways her life is better than a lot of women's. Her husband doesn't beat her yet (though I think he is working his way up to it), he has a decent job, she doesn't *have* to work outside the home, and she actually has day care for her two little kids. On the other hand, Mark clearly believes that doing any household chores is outside his job description, the sex is great and fast in his view but unrewarding in hers, he doesn't listen even when he thinks he is listening and insists on having "conversations" in which he explains that things are just fine as they are if she would stop acting like this. And she doesn't love her kids any more. To be honest, that little boy is a real pain.
I suppose anyone who wants to can go "actually, she didn't explore the following sensible ideas for improving her life, like marriage counseling, Netflix, and so on.") Netflix (or Prime) might be an idea, but is there a lot of affordable marriage counseling on offer under the Tory government, and would Mark really commit to it, and anyway that isn't the point! The point is that she is in a situation which she finds intolerable. The movie makes us understand her despair and hunger for escape, and so when she is pushed that one last inch ...
Well, that was the good part of the movie. After that, it is all downhill. Not just because a train ticket, even to Paris, doesn't really have magical powers to fix a serious life dilemma rooted in the whole social structure. No, it's mainly because it seems that writer/director Dominic Savage created such a deep and believable dilemma that he wrote himself into a corner from which he couldn't find an ending that would be palatable and honest all at once. So you have fragments of clichés and even a déesse ex machina at one point, who rescues Tara from the streets and provides a few sentences of wise advice that she could have gotten from the Internet for much less money, and at the end of the day we don't know how it works out. THE END.
Now, I grant that this is easier on the eyes than the naturalistic ending in which she would have been tracked down by the police, and become a "Monster Mum" scandal in the Mirror, and maybe thrown in a mental institution for some kind of supposed disorder, because what sane woman would ever act in such a manner. Maybe in fact .. possibly .. it is supposed to provoke this exact kind of reaction where we go "Oh, pshaw, it really should have ended like .. well, there really isn't a good way out is there" and then we try for a few seconds to think where we have gone wrong as a civilization. Maybe it is.
But let's start off talking about what the movie does well. I think it is at its best in the pre-prison break portion, which is over half of the movie I believe, in which we see the wrenching despair of this woman (Tara, whose name we don't learn for ages) who is serving an eighteen-year sentence for the crimes of being a woman, in the wrong society, and having married the wrong guy for her, and having kids under the wrong circumstances.
Now, it's true that in many ways her life is better than a lot of women's. Her husband doesn't beat her yet (though I think he is working his way up to it), he has a decent job, she doesn't *have* to work outside the home, and she actually has day care for her two little kids. On the other hand, Mark clearly believes that doing any household chores is outside his job description, the sex is great and fast in his view but unrewarding in hers, he doesn't listen even when he thinks he is listening and insists on having "conversations" in which he explains that things are just fine as they are if she would stop acting like this. And she doesn't love her kids any more. To be honest, that little boy is a real pain.
I suppose anyone who wants to can go "actually, she didn't explore the following sensible ideas for improving her life, like marriage counseling, Netflix, and so on.") Netflix (or Prime) might be an idea, but is there a lot of affordable marriage counseling on offer under the Tory government, and would Mark really commit to it, and anyway that isn't the point! The point is that she is in a situation which she finds intolerable. The movie makes us understand her despair and hunger for escape, and so when she is pushed that one last inch ...
Well, that was the good part of the movie. After that, it is all downhill. Not just because a train ticket, even to Paris, doesn't really have magical powers to fix a serious life dilemma rooted in the whole social structure. No, it's mainly because it seems that writer/director Dominic Savage created such a deep and believable dilemma that he wrote himself into a corner from which he couldn't find an ending that would be palatable and honest all at once. So you have fragments of clichés and even a déesse ex machina at one point, who rescues Tara from the streets and provides a few sentences of wise advice that she could have gotten from the Internet for much less money, and at the end of the day we don't know how it works out. THE END.
Now, I grant that this is easier on the eyes than the naturalistic ending in which she would have been tracked down by the police, and become a "Monster Mum" scandal in the Mirror, and maybe thrown in a mental institution for some kind of supposed disorder, because what sane woman would ever act in such a manner. Maybe in fact .. possibly .. it is supposed to provoke this exact kind of reaction where we go "Oh, pshaw, it really should have ended like .. well, there really isn't a good way out is there" and then we try for a few seconds to think where we have gone wrong as a civilization. Maybe it is.